Highly Used Data Sources in Zoho Analytics - 2021

2021 has been a year of breakthrough, with the successful launch of Zoho Analytics 5.0 – the modern BI & Analytics platform. Our Customers can analyze data, gathered from over 250+ data sources and with the introduction of our latest self-service data preparation tool, working with data has only become easier than ever.

This blog is an attempt to list down the top data sources used by our customers in 2021, grouped under three major categories:

 1.  Business Application Connectors 2. Direct Sources 3. Blended Sources.

We shall proceed to elaborate the list of top 10 connectors under each section below.

Top 10 Business Application Connectors  

 Zoho Analytics offers one-click integration with widely used business applications, using readily available advanced analytics connectors. They come along with pre-built insights that cover data models, metrics, reports and dashboards for each line-of-business application. That apart, users can create their own reports and dashboards using an intuitive drag-and-drop interface, for further detailed analysis.

Here’s the list of most widely used advanced analytics connectors for business applications:

Zoho CRM: Sales and Marketing professionals can get started with 75+ pre-built data visualizations and further analyze Zoho CRM data in a much more detailed and efficient way. Learn More

Google Analytics: Any Digital Marketer can easily analyze Google Analytics data in-depth. They can also jumpstart with 50+ domain specific reports and dashboards. Learn More

Zoho Projects: Project Management professionals(PMP) can do detailed analysis of their Zoho Projects data, apart from getting started with 50+ pre-built data visualizations. Learn More

Shopify: This connector provides in-depth e-Commerce analytics on your Shopify store data. It also offers 100+ pre-built reports and dashboards to begin with. Learn More

Zoho Desk: Support team managers can analyze their Zoho Desk data in greater detail, besides getting started with 75+ pre-built reports and dashboards. Learn More

Zoho Books:  This enables deeper analysis of your financial data (even of multi-org consolidations) in Zoho Books. It also includes 150+ prebuilt reports and dashboards. Learn More

QuickBooks: Finance professionals are provided with in-depth analytical capabilities. besides 50+ pre-built reports/dashboards over their QuickBooks Online data, across multiple business entities. Learn More

Google AdWords: Product marketers and SEM analysts can analyze their Google Ads campaign data in-depth. They can get started with 80+ hand-picked default reports and dashboards. Learn More

LinkedIn Pages & Ads: Social Media Managers can do detailed analysis of Linkedln pages performance and get started with  50+ prebuilt reports and dashboards. Learn More

Twitter: In-depth performance analysis of one’s own twitter handles, along with 5 competitor handles can be done. This integration also includes 65+ pre-built data visualizations. Learn More

Top 10 Direct Sources  

Apart from Business App connectors, Zoho Analytics offers integration with direct sources such as files, feeds, cloud and local databases.

 By default, periodic data synchronization is available for all databases, to keep imported data up-to-date. Also, the option for live-connection is available to fetch data in real time for every cloud-hosted database.

With respect to files, the data can be imported into Zoho Analytics through three possible ways: 1. Upload from local drive 2. Copy-paste the data 3. Import from FTP server.

Here’s the list of most commonly used direct sources:

MySQL: Data can be sourced from both local and cloud-hosted MySQL database. Learn More

SQLServer: Data can be sourced from both local and cloud-hosted SQL Server database. Learn More

PostgreSQL: Data can be sourced from both local and cloud-hosted  PostgreSQL database. Learn More

Google BigQuery: Data can be sourced from Google BigQuery Cloud Database hosted in Google BigQuery Server. Learn More

Amazon RedShift: Data can be sourced from Amazon Redshift Cloud Database. The data loading time will depend on the performance of the Redshift server. Learn More

Oracle: Data can be sourced from both local and cloud-hosted Oracle database. Learn More

MariaDB: Data can be sourced from both local and cloud-hosted MariaDB database.The live connector option is only available for select subscription plans. Learn More

Amazon Athena: Data can be directly sourced from Amazon Athena Cloud Database. The live connector option is only available for select subscription plans. Learn More

Snowflake: Data from Snowflake Cloud Database can be sourced directly. The data loading time will depend on the performance of the Snowflake server. Learn More

Local Files: Data locally stored in tabular file formats like CSV, XLS (Excel), JSON, Statistical file, and HTML files, can be directly imported. Learn More

Top 10 Blended Sources  

Zoho Analytics supports the blending of data across 250+ data sources including files, feeds, local and cloud databases, and popular line-of-business applications. As a part of our unified business analytics framework, you get to leverage data models and pre-built metrics in the form of reports & dashboards (for business application data).

Here’s a sample Customer Experience(CX) dashboard that’s built over blended data from three widely used Zoho Applications – Zoho CRM, Zoho Desk and Zoho SalesIQ.

The list of most commonly used combination of data sources for blending in Zoho Analytics, can be found below:

Zoho CRM – Zoho Desk: The complete journey of ‘potentials-turned-customers can be tracked easily. Also their requirements are known up-to-date, which helps in effective cross-selling and up selling.  Learn more 

Zoho CRM – Zoho SalesIQ: Track the complete journey of potentials who reached out via Website live-chat. Also gain better context of customers/potentials through their website interactions. Learn more 

Zoho CRM – Zoho Books: Add billing and payments-related information to pre-existing context about customers. This helps in cross-selling/up selling and also while dealing with customers acting in bad faith. Learn more 

Google Analytics – Google Ads: Monitor the complete funnel of SEM(paid-marketing) campaigns on the target web-page as measured by ad impressions, page visits, CTA clicks etc.  Learn more 

Facebook Business Manager – Google Ads: Marketers notably in B2C domain, can get a comprehensive picture of their paid-marketing efforts, especially through Facebook/instagram advertising and SEM campaigns. Learn more

Google Analytics – Zoho CRM: The effective conversion of online marketing channels can be looked through revenue-based metrics. Also sales/customer information helps in adding better context to the understanding about customer acquisition. Learn more  

Facebook Ads – Zoho CRM: Measure the effectiveness of Facebook ad campaigns through the prism of sales performance. In addition, gain better contextual information for leads acquired through Facebook.  Learn more 

Quickbooks – Zoho CRM: Get relevant context from Quickbooks financial data about different customer accounts. This definitely provides a vital shot-in-the-arm during negotiations with customers. Learn more

Zoho Desk – Zoho SalesIQ: Gather a 360-degree view of customer support, which helps companies to have the best possible context, in order to provide superior customer support in real time. Learn more 

Google Analytics – Zoho Survey: Verify the veracity of online survey responses and analyze respondent behaviour in greater detail for finer quality control of survey outcomes.  Learn more.

Please feel free to let us know about your favourite choices of blended sources (within or apart from the above listed combinations) in the comment section below. 

Also if you’re new to Zoho Analytics, you can get started here to know more about our platform’s offerings.